Google drops Exchange ActiveSync. What does it mean for Windows Phone? [Updated]

Starting February 1st 2013, Windows Phone users won't be able to create full Gmail accounts on Windows Phone. Does Microsoft have a plan?

This afternoon Google has announced the discontinuation of their support of Exchange ActiveSync (EAS aka the standard for many who use email) after January 30th 2013. The question you may be wondering is, how does it affect Windows Phone?

Surprisingly, the answer is it shouldn't have any discernable impact for the majority of you who rely on Gmail for syncing of contacts and calendar. When a user initially sets up a Gmail account on Windows Phone, you are given two choices:

Email Only – Uses POP IMAP (Updated)

Email, Contacts and Calendar – Uses IMAP EAS (Updated)

Neither of those should change in anyway for users who opt for the “walk through” method on Windows Phone, which we venture to guess, is the majority.

[Update - Rafael Rivera has done some sniffing and turns out there could be some trouble. The 'email only' option uses IMAP, not POP as previously thought while the 'email, contacts and calendar' function is EAS supported. That means when Google flips the switch in January, you will no longer be able to setup a GMail account using the second method.]

Some of you though choose to the “Advanced Setup” near the bottom of the new account screen. There is where users can currently setup Gmail using Google Sync aka Google’s ActiveSync solution. That feature is going away after January 30th for non-Google Apps subscribers. However, if you currently have that setup and are using it, the service will continue to work for you with nothing changing. Only new requests for GoogleSync will be rejected after January 30th.

But...why Google, why?

So why is Google getting rid of one of the most widely used (and often preferred) email syncing technologies? They don’t give specific reasons, but instead couch it in a “winter cleaning” metaphor--whatever that means. But the real reason we suspect is Google is taking a fight to Microsoft by pulling support for EAS, directly off-loading any potential users who prefer Microsoft's system instead.

Android will continue to rock "the best Gmail experience" in mobile while Apple's iPhone and iPad already use Google's new preferred system, leaving Microsoft left holding the bag with EAS support. While we don't think it will have a direct impact on Windows Phone, it's clear that Google is kicking some sand at Microsoft with this move. (Incidentally, Paul Thurrott agrees with this assessment, stating flatly that Google is "declaring war" on Microsoft with this change).

It's evident Google is focused on using their IMAP system, which is very unique in the syncing world as far as standards go. The reason they are probably doing it is so they can continue to alter that system to give the full Gmail experience, something for which EAS cannot do (plus there is also the matter of paying Microsoft to license EAS). In other words, Google likes IMAP for their email and they have now embraced cardDAV for calendar syncing, something that Windows Phone doesn’t support (but the iPhone does).

Google of course can do whatever they want for whatever reasons they want but in the end, we still recommend you move your stuff to Outlook.com and get away from their services if at all possible. You’ll thank us later.

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I just read the referenced Paul Thurrott article. That piece aligns with my suspicions on the motivations for this. The next step will be Google breaking the API to their services so 3rd party apps won't be an option.

From Google's perspective, I can see them looking at this as win-win. If it kills or severely cripples a potent, upcoming competitor in their space - win. If that doesn't pan out, they eventually relent and sweep in with their own apps and wipe out the 3rd parties. After all, they believe they hold a good hand because of the number of people using the Google search, email, calendar, social, voice, etc services, and most won't go through the hassle of finding alternative services, and will defer to a phone platform that makes it easy on them.

I'm a WP 920 user, and vastly enjoy it. But, objectively, I can imagine how this could play out.

Google is a cancer to the internet. Invading half of our displays and bombarding it with crap advertisements. I wonder how many people got their system infected with virus/ malware through google ads/search results. The sooner it goes bust the better .

They're doing it because being more open is taking the high road. They WANT people to use their products, not restrict people. Being open is a good thing. By only making smartglass available only to WinPhone, it becomes a niche app. By making it more open, they still keep a large audience. Afterall, XBox is still the number 1 gaming platform, and subscriptions are a decent source of income for them.
Google suddenly cutting the cord is similar to Apple's campaign to wall-off their systems, and it can come back to bite them in the ass as more and more computers start adopting Windows 8.

This reminds me of the same reason Google doesn't have any API integrations. You can't cross sync to Twitter, Facebook, Live, LinkIn, etc. And any app created basically just puts the mobile page into a shell. I personally try not to use any Google product, I search with Bing, email with Hotmail, social network with Twitter and Facebook. I only have a gmail account because a job I applied for required it and only have Google+ because my mother-in-law doesn't want to use Facebook.

The bit that worries me about this is that I use Google Apps (the free one) so that I can send email properly from my custom domain. Not many other providers have such a nice implementation as google. Does anyone know if the free Google Apps for Business users will get to keep Exchange support?

And more importantly, is this a snide move from Google to make this effect people quicker than it usually would, given we are all more than likely due to update our phones to 7.8 not long after this chage is implemented, breaking our current Exchange connections.....?!

Sadly, this is the conclusion I have come to as well. I have been using Gmail since it first hit beta status. However, I have taken a great amount of time to research what data Google collects. They collect data from EVERYTHING, Google Talk, Android, Gmail, Google Drive, Chrome, Google+, Google Hangouts, etc... It is pretty sickening how much they know about me just based on my emails and chats. I am migrating anything I can to dedicated services.

im in the process of slowly migrating my gmail to my outlook mail. It will take time all my key accounts use i use gmail--banking, personal family, lawyers etc.... forwarding will help the transition....

I ditched Gmail at WP7 time itself. Outlook is far far better in handling newsletters. Only place I use Google.account is chrome and YouTube. Day IE has sync capabilities, I LL ditch that too.....maybe.....

Wasn't it Google who recently said that "WP is not where the users are"? And then they pull this move. Contradict much? Google sux balls. Switching over to Outlook.com 4 good now. Won't be looking back.

Payback time for all the shit MS has been saying about Google lately.
Next step would be for MS to support all open standards (cal and cardDEV) that pretty much every modern device uses. Heck even Meego had that.

Agree with one of the commenters above. Microsoft need to improve the Outlook.com experience. I never seriously used it, but after reading this article, I decided to migrate my Google contacts over.
I lost all my contact photos (as expected...so no complain here). But when I go to the PC web version of Outlook.com and try to add contact photos... whoah, there is NO option to do that?!
Ok, nevermind, I remember being able to add the photo on my windows phone and sync back. It's a pain but doable. But when I added a few contact photos and synced, went back to PC web version, and I was shocked that the contacts STILL don't display photos!
AND in the course of this little exercise, I noticed a few things:
1. Some of my contacts in Outlook.com showed their source as "Outlook". Some as "Messenger"
2. I put some of these contact photos in skydrive for easy retrieval on the WP8, but guess what, the Skydrive never refresh for some reason!
3. Got the Skydrive app, went in, and was shocked to find I cannot download or view any of those photos "says I don't have internet connection"??? I was able to browse the web and connect to skydrive, so what the heck!
So yea, MS has a lot of room to improve. In this short 2 hour of exploring, I got so pissed off with MS, I was tempted to sell my WP.

The only reasons why I still have a gmail account are
- My last phone was android
- For my youtube account.
Never did any active emailing via gmail (I use either my ancient yahoo address or my official provider mail address for that.
So, no consequences for me, or am I overseeing something?
BTW, am I the only one who is annoyed by google trying to make me install chrome? (Only happens in the office for some reason)
And: I'm thinking about using bing more ... is there any way to filter a search output by age? I find this option useful and can't see it for bing ...

Anyone who didn't see this coming is awfully naïve. Contrary to belief in certain circles, the people with the smiley faces and lava lamps have been the vanguard for corruption and monopoly in the tech industry for years. I am not an Apple or Steve Jobs fan but he figured it out correctly. I also support Apple's war with Google simply because someone needs to keep Google in check. Google's practice of giving away products and services (and selling products at a loss) until they accumulate enough market share to dictate terms is as anti-competitive, anti-consumer, and monopolistic as one can get. The latest is just a manifestation of that reality. It is about consolidating market dominance and controlling consumers, not EAS license fees. It should be no surprise they are also engaging in a campaign to hamper BlackBerry users from utilizing Google services as well. In the current tech market, Apple's closed ecosystem is not (and never was) a threat to consumer choice - the real threat of monopoly has been Google since the day it went public. Hopefully, one of the new batch of lawsuits from non-Gmail subscribers over Google harvesting their data via email exchanges with Gmail subscribers will stick, and draw additional justice department attention on the company.

i have obtained a new outlook.com email acoutn and will be phasing out my gmail account and what is even better is that the email that i truly wanted is or was available on outlook.com and now i have it, so i will gladly start moving all my email to my new outlook.com account and start phasing out gmail, its as simple as that

There's a retired marketing supremo by the name of Denis Carter who very smartly says that as a sector or market leader (and like it or not G is a sector leader) you NEVER add credence to small(er) players by publicly dismissing them or downplaying their significance because it has exactly the opposite effect. Long may Google deny the significance of WP8!

Ok, so from I've been reading, the only thing affecting WP users (and IOS users for that matter) from this is that you won't get push notifications. Other than that, you'll be able to check your email and have it sync every 15 min or so (and manually) just the same. If that's not good enough simply link it to outlook and your set. Fokk Google.

screw google anyways, their business mostly relies on android, once MSFT takes off their shit will shrink.. ALSO did anyone notice how when you read sentences on a desktop computer the paragraphs of text sometimes looks tilted like the new windows logo, i guess from constantly playing with my LUMIA 920 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Google is feeling the the threat WP8 and window 8 will do. I hope MS will continue giving up apps, like Smart Glass, One Note etc. Until Google decides to block those MS apps and that will make them the bad guys.

Google isn't afraid of Windows Phone or Windows 8. They are just being dicks. They are still going to support EAS but only for enterprise customers who pay for their suite of services. Basically, they are monetizing the application suite which is within their right, I suppose. I wonder if this will hurt the adoption by businesses in the future. Microsoft should respond by making 365 services cheaper. Better product anyways.

I'm not sure... for a while, I know the OEMs were responsible for adding EAS support into their Android devices, which makes sense... Android being open-source would dictate that it can't natively include a non-open source platform.

However, if they license it for use and then open source the implementation, that may be acceptable, so I'm really not sure.

Either way, doesn't really matter... Google can not use it and Microsoft can issue a software update to change the implementation to IMAP. Problem solved for consumers and then Google's game fizzles into nothing but them being hostile to consumers and competition.

1. By taking this action, Google is blatantly saying, if you want to use our services on a Microsoft platform, you will have to use our web sites, use third party applications, or pay for their services. This backfires on Google big time... people complain about the thought of paying for Office 365, they're not going to suddenly pay for Google Apps and get less. Also, guaranteed that Apple and Microsoft will update their apps and platforms to support the new options.

2. This is really quite anti-competitive behavior by Google. They're taking a page out of Microsoft's 1990's playbook by using their dominant services against everyone. The difference is, there are plenty of options for people to say, "screw you" and move on.

3. IMAP, cardDAV, and calDAV are open standards, but Google does NOT use them that way. They bastardize the standards and mangle the hell out of them in order to make them work, and they're vastly inferior to EAS features.

4. Current users of EAS for Gmail won't be cutoff... until their phone is hard reset or they get a new phone. After that, you're sunk.

This doesn't end well for Google. Customers and competitors alike will view this as an attack.

You're an idiot. EAS works GREAT in an enterprise setting, and I have relied on it for 15 years in every enterprise I've served as administrator. I've seen email systems come and go and every single one survives only because they eventually implement EAS. The featureset surpasses every competitor, and there's a reason why everyone uses it... businesses demand it.

Like it or not there are many companies using Google apps. Microsoft should take the high road and support them with a patch. the more open and adaptive windows remains, the more closed an awful their competitors will look.

Doh. Just read google apps premium isn't affected. If this only affects regular Gmail users who the hell cares - if you need it that bad switch or pay $50.

Not nearly as many using Office solutions. This entire move is a hostile act by Google. This week they have effectively said, "that whole free lunch thing we've been promoting for years... yeah, it doesn't, so now you can pay."

Google Apps for Business, Government, and Education are not affected by this change so this is really just a punk move by Google. I have a Gmail account for Education so it shouldn't stop me from migrating from Android to WP8 in the nearish future.
Also, it really should not be hard for Microsoft to update their mail and calendar apps to support the standards Google is supporting now. I suspect they will.

Well I am happy to say that I have been Google free for over a year now. Haven't missed any service they provide at all. This is also unfortunate that Google is playing like this because it's only hurting the end users. Of course at this point I don't think they care either because if it's effecting you then you aren't on one of THEIR phones. Sorry Google..... I will stick with a WP any day over android.

You can still sync gmail, its the contacts and calendar that's the issue. I've already worked around the multiple google calendar issue by subscribing to all of them using the hotmail calendar:http://www.wpcentral.com/how-sync-google-calendar-outlookcom-your-windows-phone
Now all my calendars (Hotmail, Multiple Google calendars, etc) are all sync'ed to my phone using my Microsoft Account.
Your google contacts can be imported once you "connect" your Microsoft account and Google account (same way your facebook contacts are imported). If you do those things, then all the sync'ing is done server side, and your phone / client doesn't need to worry about Google dropping EAS support.

This is fucking stupid. They are starting a war on the people that use windows. Us.
I've had Gmail since it came out. I rely on my Gmail for everything. Asking me to switch over to outlook (which by the way I used my Gmail to sign in to windows and outlook) like its something that's so easy and so nonchalantly is ridiculous.

At first I thought gmail was cool then i said wtf is this, I couldn't follow the screen etc. Now I switched to outlook.com and also have hotmail but Microsoft is doing a good thing by consolidating everything. Microsoft & Nokia have also taken over mapping on zillow.com and other real estate portals. Google is scared to get scroogled! Long MSFT / NOK

First: MS needs to get thier shit together and support CardDav and CalDav in WP8 and Win8.
Second: With these news my planning on switching to WP8 (from iphone) got a bit harder. My wife and I have our own calendars and a shared calendar. All in a google app domain. Works great on iphone, because there you can select which calendars to sync. Not so much on Windows 8 though. And when I tried it in the WP8 emulator I only get the main calendar. Not the shared.
Ok, so I figured we could switch to using microsoft services. I am a big fan of skydrive, so why not? Well, we're using a mixed environment, so I need mac support. Turns out you can't connect to outlook.com over Exchange Web Access or whatever it is called. So no contact or calendar syncing then. And outlook.com mail is only POP3, so mail is also not usable on mac.
I really can't blame google for not supporting EAS when there are open standards like caldav/carddav. But I do fault them for their quite nonstandard imap solution. And there won't be any push e-mail for new devices I reccon. Even if they are iphones. Unless they switch to the gmail app.
Anyways, all this wouldn't be a problem at all if Microsoft just supported CalDav and CardDav on both clients and on the servers. Hopefully they will now. Something they should have done years ago. But they have to hurry. This can really hurt WP sales.
If MS were smart they would stop everything and focus fully on getting support into Win 8 and WP8. Otherwise these platforms will suffer immensly. If they put their mind into it they could have it out and tested within a month. Can't think of a single feature more important than having support for google users for these new platforms.

I doubt it will have any impact on WP sales. If people really want a WP they will find a way to access their Gmail (if they have one) one way or the other. There are already solutions mentioned. My first choice is to get rid of Gmail as Outlook is genuinely better.

I would love to switch to outlook.com, but the mac support is terrible. I can live without calendar and contact syncing to mac even if it would be good, but only POP e-mail? Really...that's like -95 stuff. Basic imap-support is a minimum. Or they give apple access to connect to outlook.com accounts (and custom domains).

It won't really have an impact on sales, but I guarantee they'll release an update (Q2 2013, my bet) to support the new protocols. Then it will really just prove that Google is being petty, and Microsoft is working for their customers.

Ok people. It's pretty clear Google has an agenda. Just get an Outlook account. It's better anyways (seriously) and you won't have to deal with a company who thinks they're bigger than what they are.

From what I've been reading, this will affect iPhone as well (with the exception that they can still use Google's apps). People are coming to the conclusion that they want to further monetize their Gmail service by forcing iPhone users to use the app (where they will probably rig it with ads etc...). Even Gmail users that have an iPhone are talking about switching to Outlook.

It won't effect the iPhone at all. If you follow the standard Google mail set up on the iPhone it sets it up as imap, not exchange. The iphone also supports caldav and carddav, so contacts and calendar will still sync. The only platformed screwed by this is Windows phone.

I had been thinking about switching to Domains.Live.com for a while anyway, and just went through with it, using POP3 to download all my mail from the Google-hosted account to a new Live-hosted account. But then, my domain is only used for my own email, I don't have any other users. It was relatively painless for just me but I could see it being annoying for many users.

I admittedly will still keep my (very simple, basically just a placeholder) site hosted with Google Apps' "Sites" functionality, but that's about it.

The email address was the same for both for me too. If you set Google to let you download all mail via POP3, it does include sent mail. You do lose the conversation view, however.

As for it being the same address for both, I went into the Google apps dashboard and renamed the user for the Google account, which let me download it to an Outlook one that was the same as the original Google address.

I just did this for my family email accounts, since I'd been using Google Apps as Google provides NO other way to use vanity domains with their services.

You don't need to make any changes on the Google Apps end. Here's how you migrate from Google Apps to Live Domains:

Go rename your existing Live ID's to your current gmail address if you don't want to make a new Live ID, this way your existing Windows Store, Xbox Music and Xbox Live, Skydrive, etc. information remains attached to your account and you don't have to move all that as well.

Once you've renamed your Live ID's, go sign up at http://domains.live.com, enable mail for the domain but DO NOT add the MX record until you are sure all of your users are able to login and access outlook.com (use the TXT record in DNS to verify your domain).

Now that you have verified your domain, go to the Users section of the Administration Center and make sure all your users appear there. Once they do and they're all able to access Outlook.com, you can flip your MX records to point to the Windows Live mailservers.

Lastly, moving email over. Open up Mail Settings in Outlook.com, go to Your Email Accounts and add a new Send+Recieve account. Click the Advanced Options link first thing since you'll need to enter your settings manually. Your email address cannot be the same as your live ID (which should be the same as your old GApps address), so do something like username+old@mycooldomain.com, the server should be pop.gmail.com, the default port and SSL settings are fine. Lastly, your username should be username@mycooldomain.com and the password is obvious.

Now sit and wait for a couple days (depending on how much email you have....I had 1GB and it took a while) for Outlook.com to import all of your mail. By the way, you should add a rule in Outlook.com to send all mail that is FROM your address to the Sent Mail folder.

Couple problems (at lease for me) with Outlook that force me to keep all my contacts on Gmail:
1) Not possible to add a picture for contact over the web interface
2) Number of email per contact is limited to 3
I hope that Microsoft aware of it.

My main mail and had always been yahoo. Never ever used Google products. Now I use hotmail, now outlook. Signed up since my first WP, the HD7, and that was two and a half years ago. Never looked back! I have Gmail too but looks so complicated. Never used it. Only upsetting is YouTube. Gov shouldn't have let them buy it!!

The article doesn't mention it, but are we to assume this is only in refernce to Gmail? If they dropped EAS support on their Android phones, that would be certain doom for them as far as connecting to actual Exchange servers that many companies use. Then again, the EAS clients provided by them usually suck, so third parties like Touchdown will benefit. I avoid Google like the plague. Even YouTube. Fuckem.

I'm going to miss my Gmail account.... I guess I'll just forward my Gmail to my Live inbox until I get everyone updated then just walk away.
If they're honestly going to make it that difficult, I have no problem leaving that account to rot...

This is perhaps the single biggest blunder in all of the relatively short smartphone history. As someone who supports enterprises and SMB's alike they all use EAS and VERY few use gmail or Google services. They just are not that good for business in my opinion. Ending EAS support will mean a boast to WP8 phones as there are now two choices: iPhone or WP8. I have personally had all phones Droid's/iPhone's/WP7/WP8 and I can honestly say I like the Nokia L920 the best. It's FAST, easy and reliable. It doesn't scratch and holds up to my easy to rough usage.

In summary, Google is shooting themselves in the foot with this decision. Do they honestly think people will just transfer to Google because they can no longer sync to Exchange? New equation: Google = Sony Beta. EAS=VHS.

I think you're misunderstanding a bit, they're not ending EAS support in Android, they're ending the EAS endpoints in Gmail. and just for the free users, the users of Google's business apps suites will continue to have it.

They're not ending EAS support in the Android OS. They're simply ending EAS support for connecting to GMail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts, and it's the latter that's the key. When I set my wife's Google account up on her iPhone shortly after Google made EAS an option, it gave me a way to bring her Google contacts OTA to her iPhone contacts app. IMAP for mail and CalDav for Calendar + physical syncing to Address Book on our Mac via iTunes was how I'd had to do it prior to this offering. EAS is so much easier all things considered, but if CardDav is reliable then it seems understandable to me why Google would attempt to simplify account connectivity setup long term - especially if they're paying MSFT for each user and they have a viable alternative?
That being said if MSFT rolled the anti-competitive dice and refused to license EAS for Android in general, Samsung, would take a body blow, and then along with HTC probably fork Android forever and pay MSFT a separate EAS license I would guess. Otherwise enterprise users would absolutely depart their platform as you warned.

Why doesn't MS simply refuse to license EAS on Android devices. I said they should do the same thing to Apple for thier app store nonsense with Skydrive. Business uses need EAS for their exchange email servers, refuse to let them use EAS and they will acquiesce, trust me.

I've used and enjoyed Gmail for years and have considered it one of the premiere email services...but l really love my L920 and I swear, I will drop Gmail like a three foot putt if it causes me any grief with my phone!

As much as I hate to admit it, this is probably a good thing for users (not MS).

Microsoft needs to support more open technologies if it wants to be anyting more than 3rd place. EAS is great, but it costs Google a lot of money to license. I'm sure they're not huge on paying that fee for every free gmail user. This strong arms MS to support IMAP IDLE (IMAP PUSH), CalDav, and CardDav.

In a way, this gives MS an opportunity to support gmail's non-standard mail setup (labels, archiving, etc.) better than it did being forced to go through EAS. It also gives MS an opportunity to support businesses that roll their own mail solutions.

I personally hate gmail, but I know a lot of people won't consider WP until it supports labels. Hopefully Belfiore makes this happen.

I would agree with you IF AND ONLY IF Google actually used the open standards too... but they purposely butcher the IMAP standards to suit their needs too. They do it so that they're in control of their own services and keep them more closed than you may realize. You can't have it both ways.

Not only their .... adaptation ... of IMAP, but they don't actually support CalDAV or CardDAV either. You can sync contacts INTO Google's services from CardDAV, but their platform doesn't actually utilize those for contact/calendar storage or retrieval. IMAP as a push mechanism is also very inefficient versus ActiveSync, so there's not a technical reason this is being done. It appears to be entirely political and anti-competitive. Given Google's marketshare in the phone market compared to Microsoft's, this really is trying to head them off at the pass (with WP8), and smacks a little of desperation. For full disclosure I am a Microsoft employee, but it doesn't make this any less obvious. There's no reason (other than licensing fees for EAS) that this would be done, especially to less-eficient sync methods.

I think that's exactly what it is.
Google always is trying to pretend Mircrosoft is no really competitor. They really are intent on never mention MS in Termes of big companies or competitors in the IT-business.
They are avoiding to bring any of their services to the new Windows-Platforms.

I wouldn't be surprised if google would but pressure on Samsung and were the reason why the Ativ S is in such a big delay.
Samsung normally is fast in bringing new phones. They just redesigned their tablet in two month after the iPad 2 presentation. They could bring the Ativ as the "other/different" GS3 and I think they wouldn't lose anything. They could really benefit from the galaxy brand.
I can't find a rational reason, why Samsung wouldn't have brought the Ativ S as fast as possible to the market (not just to us in Austria - many the smallest country in the world ;) ).
I mean they have the resources.
But I think Google is in the position to but pressure on Samsung.

I feel like I'm already in a perpetual battle with android fanboys (a battle I didn't initiate, all I was doing was showing off my awesome new phone lol). Good to see the theatre of war has expanded to corporate proportions

Ever since google suspended my gplus account for using a pseudonym instead of my real name, I dropped all google services and deleted my account (months ago now). Pity, because I liked Gplus . Good to see I've no reason to regret my departure though: google is getting worse by the month, violating privacy and being generally obtuse.

Google is playing with fire, and is going to get burn , I don't really understand how the fuck , google can say I'm no going to release and app for windows phone 8 and is all good , and apple can block apps from its market but Microsoft can't do the same , I would block anything google makes from windows 8 and will only allow internet explorer and Bing , there's go google out of business.

Same here. A few years ago I was all but enamored with every move they made, but now I'm beginning to see through it all. Plus, I can't help but think that the only thing they focus on is innovating further. They've yet to finish a product, everything always seems to be a work in progress.

Fine. Screw them. Ever since Hotmail has been upgraded to Outlook I've been using Gmail less and less. And Google is pissing me off with their childish behaviour towards Windows Phone and Microsoft, so I'm going to have a little winter cleaning myself. Goodbye Google, and riddance.

But that only resolves a money issue. I think if they pull Office, Skype, Skydrive and other support from Android it would have a bigger meaning but it seems that Google is forgetting their "Do no evil" slogan.
Its weird to see that Google is turning evil and Microsoft is turning for the good. Something you couldn't really say like 5 years ago.

I'm pulling the plug now and moving my apps account over to live domains, it's a bit of a pain, but google wants to keep screwing users to fight Microsoft...and users like myself who enjoy both companies products, I'll go with the company that works to build cross-platform so if i ever do leave, i wont be stiffed in the future.

The problem is not IMAP on Windows Phone 8. That's a standardized implementation. The problem is that Google mangled the hell out of IMAP on their end by using a non-standard implementation. This is the same problem that caused the issue with Yahoo over IMAP earlier this year.

That's my understanding of it too. Google uses a custom IMAP solution, which on occasion, they alter and it causes issues on clients. That's what caused that rash of syncing issues a few weeks ago--if it were EAS, that presumably would not have occured).

I understand that EAS is supposed to be manually set up. Yet I did the automatic setup and went into the email settings and checked contacts and calendar after and my phone list populated and gave me a push email option. So how is that different from EAS

I am considering doing this but will it pull all emails or just recent ones? Not being able to search old e-mails is getting very annoying, even though I set up an Exchange ActiveSync, really not liking the arrogance of google at all, reminds of another famous company

Actually it's pretty easy. First, create a new outlook.com account (skip this step if you already have a hotmail/live/outlook account). Next, log into the outlook account and attach your Google account - this will sync your contacts. Then, log into Gmail and set up a forwarding address (Settings->Forwarding and POP/IMAP); point this to your outlook account. Now all email sent to your gmail.com address will be forwarded to your outlook.com address. Sit back and enjoy. Or, configure your outlook.com address to pull messages from your gmail account - go to More Mail Settings->Your Email accounts and Add a send-and-receive account. There will be a delay in receiving emails sent this way, as it only polls so often (and the poll rate isn't configurable).

When I got my Windows phone I tried to link my Google contacts. Phone numbers for about 2/3 of my contacts were missing. Its not simple at all if you use custom descriptions in Google Contacts for phone numbers or email addresses. Outlook ignores them.

This! Microsoft's contact support is woeful, especially in WP7.5. I have to maintain two separate contact lists (one for Android and WP each) because all custom descriptions in Google contacts are ignored by MS.
This hasn't been fixed in the new Outlook mail.

Outlook.com added DMARC a very nice spam prevention stardard to it servers. DMARC essentially signs each email with the sending server's private cert and publishes it's public cert in DNS. Recieving servers will check the cert of the server that sends the email and will reject invalid signed emails. This makes it a bit more difficult for the spammers. Anyway, the bottom line is forwarding email from your old email service to outlook may not work as expected. I was unable to do this from comcast to outlook. I had to use the email pulling service in outlook.com to pull mail from comcast.

Microsoft is not stupid. I might use ipod and android tablet and xbox a windows phone alltogether because I am free to choose right? now these companies should think about some other way for competition and not make people like me suffer for their own selfishness and jealousy. Microsoft by far was better than others in competition fairness. but now apparently they are taking it to the next level.